Today was a very enjoyable class.  We did our basics and then spent the rest of the class helping our lower rank fellow students with some kihon and kata.

We started class with our normal kicking warm up.  I thought that I finally had my front snap kick problems worked out but I guess not.  Sensei told me that I am straightening my kicking leg again.  Ugh!  I am nearing my eighth year of Karate and my sixth year of training with Sensei Cieplik and my kicks are still off.  I know I will get it one day.

Basics are the building blocks of everything else…

We spent the first part of class working on basics.  We did moving forward and back with rising block, downward block, inward block and outward block all with reverse punch.

Moving forward and back in back stance with knife hand block, then knife hand block with front leg front snap kick moving into front stance with spear hand strike.

We finished up basics moving side to side in a horse stance with side snap kick, side thrust kick and then both kicks with one count.

Help the lower ranks with one technique….

For the rest of the class, Sensei paired each black belt up with a lower to work on a specific technique.  The technique that I helped my fellow student work on we moving forward with front punch.   The best part about helping others with their techniques is I normally learn something too.

Sensei wanted us to help show them how to punch with the in and down movement.  For example, instead of just stepping in and punching, Sensei had them do a lunging movement to get the feeling of driving in low and punching while using the entire body.   After a few tries, the person I was working with was hitting like a truck.  We then did the movement, the normal way and had him apply the same body motion but in a regular stance.  Even though the movement was not strong when lunging in, it was much stronger than before we did the drill.

We spent the rest of class working on kata and helping our fellow students fine tune their moves for their upcoming exams.

There are days when class goes by too fast and today was one of those days.  Even though Sensei Noia had us work on many different movements, that clock was spinning faster than usual.

Get a partner….

We partnered up and started our drills in a horse stance.  From there we alternated jodan front punch with rising block, chudan front punch with inward block and gedan punch with downward block.

For the next drill, we did the same alternating movement but this time moving forward and backward in a front stance.

Get your kicks in….

Next, we did kicks.  We did moving forward with front snap kick, side thrust kick, back kick and roundhouse kick.  We did two kicks for one count with a three second pause in between each kick and then three kicks for one count, again,  with a three second pause in between kicks.  Trying to balance between the kicks was really tough after doing all those kicks.

Watch my kata…

For the next drill, Sensei had us go back to our original partner.  One partner did their kata while the other watched and gave one good thing and one thing that needs to be corrected about their kata.  Then the other partner did the same.

Constant punches…

We finished up class doing constant punches but moving front stance to stance.  The stances included horse stance, front stance, cat stance, back stance, cross leg stance, fudo dachi and sanchin dachi.

We covered a lot of good stuff and I only wish we had more time because it really got away from us today.

Today, Sensei Cieplik had us work on our kicks again and some what I will call fluid one-step sparring.

Kicks and basics, basics and kicks…..

One of my favorite drills, although not a pure kicking movement is similar to move in the kata called Unsu.  For this move, we start in a left leg forward front stance, do a rear leg front snap kick, twist your body (from the hips) 90 degrees and put the kicking leg back down behind us.  The turn needs to be done with the body, especially the hips, and putting the foot back down behind needs to be done forcefully, much like a move in itself.

We also did shuffle up front leg front snap kick with rear leg front snap kick.  Next we did shuffle up front leg roundhouse kick with rear leg roundhouse kick.

The next drill was moving sideways in a horse stance with side snap kick, then side thrust kick and then both of those kicks for each count.

After many kicks, we worked on our basics.  Moving forward and back with the normal blocks and reverse punches but Sensei added something different.  We did moving forward and back with rising block, same arm rising elbow strike and reverse punch.  The idea was to do this move smoothly and be able to react to changing attacks.

Pivot out of the way…

We got a partner and and worked on some one step drills.  Our partner stepped in with a front punch and we were to pivot, easily out of the way, and counter with whatever attack we wanted to use. The key to this move is the pivot motion which is fast and small but moves you away from the attack.

For the next drill, our partner front kicked at us and we stripped the kick away.  When stripping the kick, the idea is to lead them off center and pull them forward so that they are falling into your counter attack.  This is also a small movement where you pivot to get out of the way.

We finished up with some kata.  We did Tekki shodan, Jion, Bassai Dai and Kanku Dai.